Description
This query was originally published in the threat analytics report, Doppelpaymer: More human-operated ransomware. There is also a related blog.
DoppelPaymer is ransomware that is spread manually by human operators. These operators have exhibited extensive knowledge of system administration and common network security misconfigurations. They often use stolen credentials from over-privileged service accounts to turn off security software, run malicious commands, and spread malware throughout an organization.
The following query detects attempts to stop security services.
The See also section below lists links to other queries associated with DoppelPaymer.
References:
https://msrc-blog.microsoft.com/2019/11/20/customer-guidance-for-the-dopplepaymer-ransomware/
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/wdsi/threats/malware-encyclopedia-description?Name=Ransom:Win32/DoppelPaymer.KM!MTB
- Rule type
- Scheduled
- Version
- 1.0.0
- Declared status
- Available
- Query frequency
- 1h
- Query period
- 1h
- Trigger
- gt 0
Declared MITRE coverage
Declared sources
Metadata from the source file. No dependencies inferred from KQL.
Connectors
Data types
KQL query
Original query, unchanged.
// Attempts to stop services and allow ransomware execution
DeviceProcessEvents
| where InitiatingProcessFileName startswith "psexe" and FileName =~ "powershell.exe" and
ProcessCommandLine has "stop-service" and ProcessCommandLine has "sql" and ProcessCommandLine has "msexchange"
| extend HostName = iff(DeviceName has '.', substring(DeviceName, 0, indexof(DeviceName, '.')), DeviceName)
| extend DnsDomain = iff(DeviceName has '.', substring(DeviceName, indexof(DeviceName, '.') + 1), "")
Declared entities
Related content
Links established from declared identifiers and solution manifests.
Source provenance
GitHubDisplayed values come from files in Azure/Azure-Sentinel. They describe the published template, not your workspace configuration.
- Commit
9800e51↗- Source identifier
5bdc1504-880c-4b30-a39c-7c746535928d
GSTEP / CATALOG TRACKING
Added to catalog : 16 Sept 2026 · 05:49 UTC
Last change observed : 16 Sept 2026 · 05:49 UTC